Ireland will start returning asylum applicants who came here through Britain “within weeks” under plans agreed by the Government, although uncertainty remains over how effective the initiative will be in practice.
The Cabinet has agreed to change existing laws in order to allow the UK to be deemed a “safe third country” for returns, meaning asylum seekers who arrive across the Border could be considered inadmissible applicants.
While British prime minister Rishi Sunak said he would not accept the return of asylum seekers from the Republic, Taoiseach Simon Harris said there was a “legitimate expectation” that an existing November 2020 agreement on the return of asylum seekers between the two countries would be upheld.
The British government has disputed that it has any “legal obligation” to accept asylum seekers from Ireland. A spokesperson for No 10 Downing Street said there were “operational arrangements” between the UK and Ireland but “not a legal obligation to accept the return of asylum seekers and under those operational arrangements no asylum seekers have been returned to the UK”.
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“It’s up to the UK government who we do and do not accept into the country,” the spokesperson said.
However, Mr Harris said it was “important for people in Britain to understand this is a two-way agreement. This is to ensure that refugees can be sent in both directions if their application is inadmissible.” He said, “we all have a legitimate expectation that agreements between two countries are honoured”.
Minister for Justice Helen McEntee said: “We are really clear – the same way we were clear when we went through the Brexit negotiations – any agreement that’s reached between Ireland and the UK, we expect that it will be upheld,” she told RTÉ’s Six One news programme.
However, the Government has also acknowledged that this operational agreement has not been previously actioned as no asylum seekers have been returned to the UK in recent years.
Ministers were told on Tuesday this was because of Covid-19 and a recent High Court judgment which found that Ireland’s designation of the UK as a “safe third country” was unlawful. The State is appealing the finding, while the new legislative changes will allow the operational agreement to resume.
As part of these changes, Ms McEntee will add an extra “test” into the criteria used to designate a place as a “safe third country”. Under the extra test, she will consider the potential for serious harm in situations of internal or international armed conflict.
The changes will clear the way for the UK to be designated as a safe country and will be made within a matter of weeks. Asked if it was the intention of the Government to return asylum seekers to the UK once the legislation was passed, scheduled before the end of June, the Government’s spokesman said: “That is the intention.”
A Government spokesman stressed that the two Governments would co-operate – as they have previously done – in the management of the Common Travel Area (CTA) between the two countries.
A spokesman for the Department of Justice said on Tuesday night that “there has been and continues to be excellent co-operation between the Department of Justice and the Home Office on a whole range of CTA matters, including this arrangement”.
Separately, Mr Harris has pledged that Lower Mount Street in Dublin city centre will be cleared of tents, and asylum seekers camped in the vicinity of the International Protection Office will be provided with safer and sanitary accommodation.
Mr Harris said that, once cleared, the tents would not be allowed back. The Government would make sure “that the laws of the land are applied and it is not allowed to happen again”.
Ms McEntee also said on Tuesday that she stood over figures she provided last week that indicated that at least 80 per cent of asylum seekers were arriving into Ireland over the land Border with Northern Ireland. She also said she had discussed the matter with Tánaiste Micheál Martin and he also accepted the figures, after he said they were not based on statistics, evidence or data.
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